Retrospect
by shadowglove
Summary: SLASH. I knew if I let you close you'd only end up breaking my heart.


Disclaimer: Don't own Twilight

Written for my Slash Requested Prompt Table on Livejournal.

Prompt submitted by mia_dcwut_09: Edward/Jacob - I knew if I let you close you'd only end up breaking my heart.

A/N: Due to the prompt being in first person, I shall try and write this in first person as well! ALSO! THIS IS UNCANON! (obviously)

Warning: ANGST  
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I knew if I let you close you'd only end up breaking my heart.

Somehow, despite how wrong and impossible it should be, I'd known from the first moment I saw you had an unexplainable power over me. When our pack met your coven during their return to hash out the renewal of the treaty, when your golden eyes glided over each wolf before resting on me, I knew it with every fiber of my being. You were dangerous, far more dangerous than the others gave you credit. It had nothing to do with what you were or how you survived, your venom and bloodthirst not even entering into the equation. No. It was the way I felt when I was with you that warned me to be aware, that a great predator was in my midst and I was the only prey. I would be the only one hurt.

And yet just as my Instinct warned me away it drew me closer to you, my enemy and yet not. At first I blamed everything on my curiosity, and why shouldn't I be curious about you? A vampire who not only drank from animals but could read the pack's mind...a rarity of your kind. Without even trying you could break into the Pack Bond and hear us in wolf form, know our every thought, our every plan, knew us better than we might know ourselves. You could feel Sam's distrust and guilt due to hurting Leah, could feel everyone's distrust but mine. The way you lingered on me curiously I knew you could feel my own curiosity.

It made me even more vulnerable and the fact that you didn't bring it up, never used what you gleaned from my mind against me-it added to the curiosity. You ensnared me. You knew it. And yet you didn't do anything to stop me.

I hate you for it.

Maybe it was Carlisle's doing, maybe you went to him for advice on how to deal with a foolish wolf and his growing fascination and maybe the man you thought of as a father instructed you to let it be, that this might be the way to garner a true alliance with the pack. Maybe he was the reason you let me continue to follow you, watch you, let my feelings continue to evolve into this hellish torment without saying a word.

Or maybe, even now, I am trying to blame someone, anyone, but you.

I ask myself how could you have known what would happen when not even I was aware? As I let my presence (and not just my mind) be visible to you during your hunts, watching you and your family and yet focusing only on you. Somehow you were different from them. Different from everyone else. And you knew it. You loved them, the others, but you never quite felt a part of them and their happiness together. You shied away from their displays of affection, always turned the other way whenever they'd engage in romantic activities with their mates.

I used to think it made you uncomfortable as it made me.

I didn't realize it made you jealous, that that was what you'd been searching for all these years and hadn't found.

That you sometimes hated the others for it.

And you hated yourself for hating them.

Maybe that was why you tolerated me at first, a punishment of sorts.

Or maybe you knew, _you knew_, and you couldn't stand being the only one miserable.

We hardly ever spoke, not with words at least. I never trusted you or myself enough to be in your presence unless I was the wolf. Even then I was never truly protected from you, your mind finding mine, reading mine.

Sometimes you'd speak to me, sometimes we'd just stay there in silence in the woods, outcasts of our own families as we were the only ones without mates of our own. I wondered as to the difference between wolf mates and vampire mates, and you just gave that half smile of yours that truly was never a smile, sending me a sideways glance and shrugging your own ignorance to the subject.

Sometimes you'd just talk. It was as if you were talking to yourself, a long monologue on various subjects that never made sense to me. And yet I'd listen, always. I didn't know about the world outside the Rez like you did, nor lived the vast amount you had. There were many things I could never begin to understand but they fascinated me and I wanted to know more, to listen more, to the sound of your voice. At times it was hardly more than a whisper on the wind but I could hear it, could picture the visions you painted with your words, could taste and smell. I began to feel like a child compared to you, the all-knowing, sage one.

At that time I still didn't understand my feelings but you must have.

You must have!

How could you not have read my mind, my thoughts and known? You were the wordly one. You who with your beauty must have had countless other impressionable fools fall helpless to your charms. You knew.

_You knew_.

And yet you started telling me about your mother, about your life as a human before Carlisle changed you to save your life at your dying mother's bequest. You shared your rebellious years feeding upon murderers and rapists, how you hated yourself for the excuse you'd given yourself that you were doing it to save the world and protect innocents. You saw yourself as a monster, a vile, terrible, soulless creature.

I saw you as an angel of mercy.

It was around then I began to suspect what my feelings must be, but I tried to deny it.

And then one night you reached over and ran your hand over my fur and I knew, _I knew_ I loved you.

You must have heard my jumbled, chaotic thoughts, heard the way my heart raced erratically. You could hear the cry of surprise and confusion, could browse through my every thought as I went through every stage of denial before finally accepting the truth. You could have said something. You could have even just stood and left. You should have done anything to put a stop to it before things got worse...before I loved you more.

But you only continued to run your hand over my fur.

I hate you for that...for knowing that you had my heart...my all...and you didn't care enough to at least try not to break it.

For giving me hope.

I hate you.

I hate you!

And I hate _Her_.

I can't even think Her name.

It fills my mouth with a bile.

_Her_.

Daughter of my father's friend. Childhood playmate of mine. Dangerous klutz. Depressed and obsessive. Not even that pretty.

And yet She was...pretty. Is. Pretty.

She's also a human, and a She. She's a woman, or will be in a couple of years if She doesn't somehow manage to accidentally kill herself before that happens.

Her blood calls to you like a raging fever and I'd wished you'd kill Her...because the way you rant about Her, about Her smell and how you can't escape Her no matter how hard you try...I see past the lies, smell the arousal, know that you protest too much. It eats at me, filling me with a darkness I didn't know I had and it doesn't help that if it wasn't for you I'd like Her. Really like Her. So I can't hate Her as much as I wish I did.

Not even when you stop going to our place at night because you instead stalk Her.

Watch Her.

Want Her.

_Her_.

And now I stare at the wedding invitation in my hand and I can't stop myself.

I run outside, phase and disappear into the woods, howling.

How cruel can you be? Do you hate me this much? Or do you not care at all? Do my feelings not count? Did they ever?

I don't go to your wedding, not that I believe you expected me to. Wanted me to.

I lose myself in the wilderness, in my animal skin. I want to bury the hurt, weak human and forget he ever existed. I hunt to survive, sleep under the stars, and never stay the same place twice. I call my father every couple of weeks to let him know I am alive.

He never asks me why I've gone or when I'll come back and I love him for it.

When I finally return much has changed, you're a married man and expecting a child. That both shocks and send me through a loop as your kind don't procreate. Sam says it's a demon child, that it needs to be killed before it can be born, but friends of yours have come to stay with you and are protecting both the child and Her. She's still human so She's dying because She's carrying your child.

I hate how I can't feel vicious happiness...because She was nice.

But I won't help you either. I stay aside, I am neither for the pack nor for the coven. I left the pack when I left the Rez, and I am a lone wolf now content to stay at home with my father, tinker with vehicles, and pretend I don't care about anything or anyone. I pretend I don't care about you and I'm convincing, I even manage to fool myself sometimes.

And then Sam comes to visit and ruins it.

She's given birth to some sort of vampire/human hybrid and died, the venom not enough to keep Her alive after Her body had been ravaged and depleted by the thing She'd been carrying. The child still lives, Seth having Imprinted on her while one of your allies tried to get her to safety. It meant the pack had to end the fight, had to back down, could never harm her. Your child is safe and your wife dead.

And I feel for you. For your loss.

I hate how you can make me mourn for you like this when I should feel elated that She is dead.

I hate how for a second I wish the venom had been enough.

I hate that because I don't really hate you, I wish She were still alive, because you love Her.

I hate that I love you that much.

And because She was nice, I bring Her flowers to Her grave.

I hate how I could never really hate Her either.

And I tell Her that.

I finally tell Her how I loved you once...and then told Her how it'd happened.

Mostly though I talk to Her about everything _but_ you.

I never tell Her I'm still in love with you though.  
She's dead-but somehow I feel She knows.

It's pathetic that I feel closer to Her now than I have with anyone else.

You come upon me once at Her grave without me realizing it until you're right there holding your daughter, Seth's Imprint, Her child. It's the first time I see the kid who looks so much like you and so little like Her. It jars me and I stand, wanting to leave, calling myself all sorts of fool for letting you catch me here with Her.

You call my name, thank me for coming to see Her. That She would have liked it.

I don't want to be here. I don't want to hear your voice.

The child's named after Her...about the only thing of Her she had.

I leave without a word, feeling your gaze on me and hurrying my pace.

I knew once that if I let you close you'd only end up breaking my heart.

I've learnt my lesson.

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The first person POV was WEIRD to write! *facepalm


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